News Release

September 28, 2012

Ohio University’s first Konneker Fund for Learning and Discovery award recipients announced

Ohio University’s new Konneker Fund for Learning and Discovery recently made its first awards totaling $100,000 to two innovative programs designed to advance undergraduate learning, research and graduate education. Projects selected for the inaugural awards will have University-wide impact and align with best practices documented in national research.

Submission deadline for the 2012-13 funding cycle is November 15, 2012. 2012-13

KONNEKER FUND RECIPIENTS

Candace Stewart, coordinator of the Student Writing Center, and her project team will receive $68,500 from the Konneker Fund over the next two years for their project “Making Space for Creative Collaboration: The Graduate Writing and Research Center.” The project also will receive $10,000 in support from University College.

Funding will make possible the establishment of the Graduate Writing and Research Center (GWRC), which will provide free writing and research support to graduate students as well as to undergraduates engaged in research.

The collaborative project team includes Stewart; Kelly Broughton, assistant dean for research and education services in Alden Library; Cynthia King, associate dean of University College and executive director of the Academic Advancement Center; and Talinn Phillips, assistant professor of English.

“We are delighted, of course, to have received the award,” said Stewart, who refers to the project as Phillips’ “brainchild.”

The GWRC already has hired a statistics tutor and been given space on the third floor of Alden Library around the corner from the Faculty Commons (Room 309). Lydia McDermott, assistant coordinator of the Student Writing Center, will oversee day-to-day operations in the GWRC. Lorraine Wochna, instruction coordinator and reference librarian, will be the liaison between the GWRC and the subject librarians. The GWRC is planning its grand opening for the beginning of spring semester in January.

The second award will go to Todd Myers, associate professor and assistant chair in the Department of Engineering Technology and Management in the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ College of Engineering and Technology. He will receive $31,500 from the Konneker Fund to develop and implement a “New Two Year Completion Undergraduate Online Degree Program Bachelor of Science in Technical Operations Management (BSTOM).”

“This completion degree will complement almost any associate technology degree and provide opportunities for graduates of the program to advance in their chosen fields,” said Myers. “The program will be targeted to professionals who seek to complete their bachelor’s degree while working.”

The BSTOM program will accept students who have completed a technical associate’s degree with a requisite GPA and /or work experience and successful completion of a pre-major set of courses.

“The ‘two-plus-two’ online program leads to a (bachelor’s degree), and the plan is to also offer an appropriate minor to complement this degree,” said Myers. “The second objective is to create a standardized framework for new online program feasibility and start-up planning with eLearning Ohio. The framework will be developed concurrently… and will be utilized to investigate new program feasibility, market potential, budget estimation, course offering mapping, timeline creation, and planning checklists.”

Myers’ project partners are Linda Lockhart, manager of communications for Regional Campuses and Outreach, and Carissa Anderson, director of articulation services for University Outreach. The program is on target to admit its first cohort of students for fall semester 2014.

For more information about the Konneker Fund, visit http://www.ohio.edu/research/funding.cfm.